1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to prompting systems and, more particularly, to a method for improving a user interface for a prompting system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Telephone-based prompting systems are in increasing use both to provide an interface to voicemail systems and to provide an interface for interactive voice response systems, such as airline reservations, bank customer account lines, and other institutional lines such those of government, utilities, credit card companies and the like. Many systems, such as those used for banking or stock trading, may be frequently accessed by individual users, often several times a day. In such systems, users are presented with hierarchical levels of prompts which are navigated by pressing buttons on the telephone keypads. The resulting DTMF (dual tone multifrequency) signals are received by the prompting system and used to access a different level in the hierarchy or to access a specified function.
Frequently, such prompting systems cause user frustration in that they provide only a predetermined set of prompts in a predetermined order. The user who knows his way through the set of prompts to reach a known destination must nevertheless be presented with a voice message identifying each prompt state. While sequential overrides are available, the user must still key in an entry for each state.
Certain known telephone prompting systems permit a user to select a function which abbreviates the prompts. Thus, for example, rather than messages such as xe2x80x9cFor information concerning flight arrivals and departures, please press 1 nowxe2x80x9d, the user might be presented with the message xe2x80x9cArrivals and departures, press 1.xe2x80x9d Such systems still, however, require the user to navigate through each of the prompts prior to reaching a desired function. Similarly, other systems allow the user to skip from one hierarchical level to another hierarchical level, but only upon being provided with a separate prompt.
Such systems suffer from further disadvantages. In particular, those systems do not allow for dynamic updating; i.e., they are not automatically adaptive to usage patterns that change over time.
This particular disadvantageous in systems that are frequently accessed by users. Each user must wait through a predetermined menu presentation that is often unnecessary if the user has an established pattern of repeatedly selecting the same menu options. Considerable times saving can be achieved by reordering the menu to present the more popular options first.
For example, a voice response system of a company""s human resource service center may have available various menu-driven voice response options, such as pension plan account balances, employment verification, medical payment verification, or the like. A lot of requests for information on the company""s benefits plan may be received during the week immediately following an announced change. Before the change, employment verification may have been the most requested choice. In a conventional voice response system, company personnel would need to detect the change in calling patterns and manually reorder the menu in order to present the most popular selections first. Otherwise, all callers would have to endure a potentially lengthy menu presentation prior to being given the desired option.
Non-institutional dynamic prompting systems (i.e., those not already xe2x80x9cfixedxe2x80x9d), such as those for in-house voice mail systems, similarly suffer from inefficiencies in storage and retrieval. More particularly, users of those systems who wish to save messages have no way of organizing the stored messages when they use a displayless interface, such as a telephone. Such users have only the option of saving or not saving the messages. The messages then are saved in a linear queue. Frequently, such messages are saved in forward or reverse chronological order, without any further added information. If any of the saved messages is to be retrieved, the user must listen to each prompt for each message or for its header. The user is thus unable to screen his stored message for a desired one in particular.
While the use of a graphical user interface (GUI), such as those available in computer-telephony interface (CTI) systems, provides an ability to organize messages, such GUIs often are not available if users wish to access messages remotely.
What is needed, therefore, is an improved method for navigating among and across hierarchical menu levels in a telephone prompting system. There is particularly a need for a prompting system in which a user can more rapidly navigate to a desired function. There is a further need for an improved method of organizing voicemail or multimedia messages from a displayless interface. There is particularly a need for a prompting or messaging system which permits on-the-fly voice labeling and message organization. There is a further need for a system that permits automatic updating, and reconfiguration of the menu choices in an interactive voice response (IVR) system.
These and other drawbacks of the prior art are overcome in large part by a system and method according to the present invention. An IVR system according to an embodiment of the present invention provides for automatic updating of the order of menu options based on frequency of use, such that the most popular choices come first. In particular, an IVR system may be configured to tailor the menu for each individual user. This can be accomplished by compiling usage statistics for each user. The IVR system can monitor a user identification, such as a user personal identification number (PIN) or a user caller-ID number, and the choices which the user has previously made while accessing the system. Alternatively, a common menu can be present to all users. In this embodiment, the menu can be ordered based on choices of all users made during a predetermined prior period.
In accordance with another embodiment of the present invention, automated updating of menu presentations can also be incorporated in multimedia messaging systems, as well as voice mail systems.